The Arizona Corporation Commission’s former top attorney is suing the agency, accusing commissioners of retaliation, discrimination and violating state transparency laws.
Robin Mitchell, who is Black, spent 18 years working for the commission, including five years as director of the legal division before being demoted in 2023, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Mitchell claimed that demotion was part of a larger pattern of discrimination against non-white employees under Republican Commission Chairman Jim O’Connor.
According to the lawsuit, four of the Corporation Commission’s seven divisions were led by non-white directors before the commission hired new Executive Director Doug Clark in April 2023 and began firing or demoting them. The number of non-white directors is now down to one.
A commission spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, but denied the allegations in a statement earlier this year.
“The Commission has not, does not, and will not discriminate on the basis of race or any other category, but bases its employment decisions on objective work-related criteria,” according to the statement, issued after Mitchell first went public with the allegations in May.
According to a lawsuit, Mitchell said the commission reassigned her to the position of “director of special projects,” after some commissioners expressed concern with the performance of staff attorneys during a rate case hearing for Arizona Public Service, one of the state’s largest utilities.
Mitchell said Clark referred to the special projects position as the “Eli deal,” referencing a similar offer that was given to former Utilities Division Director Elijah Abinah. Mitchell alleged Abinah, who is Black, resigned rather than take that offer following a prolonged pressure campaign by O’Connor to terminate his employment.
Mitchell was on vacation at the time of the APS hearing and claims she planned to discuss a plan with Clark to address those attorneys’ performance when she returned.
“Defendant Clark acknowledged that he told ‘them’ that and then said, ‘they wanted you gone yesterday,’ according to the lawsuit, which alleges the “they” referred to O’Connor and fellow Republican Commissioners Nick Myers and Kevin Thompson.
Mitchell alleged the APS rate case incident was a pretext to fire her and replace her with an attorney more politically aligned with O’Connor, Myers and Thompson, claiming one of her “special projects” was training new attorneys despite being apparently demoted following the poor performance by attorneys in her division.
She claims that both her and Abinah were targets of retaliation after they raised concerns about O’Connor’s alleged outside communications with a utility regulated by the commission.
The commission eventually hired Tom Van Flein, a Republican attorney who previously served as chief of staff to Congressman Paul Gosar.
According to the lawsuit, Van Flein, a white male, received a higher salary than Mitchell even though he was not licensed to practice law in Arizona at the time of the hiring and lacked relevant experience.
The lawsuit alleged the commission – specifically O’Connor, Myers, Thompson, Clark and Katharine Fredriksen (O’Connor’s policy advisor and Thompson’s sister) – committed race and sex-based discrimination and violated her rights under the U.S. Constitution and federal Civil Rights laws.
Beyond that, she alleged a range of other unethical behavior by the commissioners named in the lawsuit.
Mitchell, who was the commission’s top attorney until September 2023, claims that some commissioners regularly use their personal cell phones and computers to circumvent Arizona’s Public Records Law, which gives the public access to communications by elected officials related to the performance of their official duties.
Mitchell also alleged the Republican majority has violated the state’s Open Meeting Law, which requires the commission to vote on official business in meetings that can be attended by members of the public. She alleged those commissioners discussed votes and spoke with representatives of the utilities they regulate outside of those open meetings in order to coordinate votes ahead of time.
A spokesperson for the Corporation Commission did not respond to a request to comment on those new allegations.
